


Taken (Don't Really Want My Heart)

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [95]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Worship, F/F, MILFs, Porn with Feelings, Tender Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:00:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29421969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: So Mina keeps her love to herself, thinks the passing pain of knowing that love remains unspoken, unacknowledged, is most often worth the joy of loving Ana, and the time they get to spend together, at the cost of her silence.Or,Mina and Ana have other ways of expressing to one another the words they cannot bring themselves to say.
Relationships: Ana Amari/Mina Liao
Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [95]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/508281
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Taken (Don't Really Want My Heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romnovs (tashatops)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tashatops/gifts).



> i am so sorry that i am posting this on valentines day bc i took 10k years to psych myself up to post things bc this is not a valentines fic. but my timing has always been ass so this is what you get dot jpeg
> 
> I FORGOT I PROMISED VIC ID WRITE THIS FOR THEIR BDAY AHHHH so its v late for that

When Mina is born, with a handy assist from advancements in reproductive technology, her parents are already considered old. Her mother is in her mid-50s, and her father a decade older, her existence the result of a late-in-life change of heart, an abrupt reversal of her parents’ decision nearly three decades earlier to remain without children. Mortality is, then, already on their minds, following a cancer scare, and the decision to have her, although not one they will ever regret, is one motivated by her mother’s fear of being forgotten, her fear that, without a child, nothing will remain of her husband when he dies, and there will be no one to remember him with in life, no one with whom she might mourn, nothing to show for their love.

Mina’s father has no such fear, believes, strongly, that he will be reborn, in some form, and growing up, Mina envies him that certainty. Her whole childhood is spent watching him die, his cancer returning and being beaten back only to reemerge again a year or two later, over and over and over again, from the time she is two until she is fifteen. He never wavers, throughout it all, is scared not of death, not of dying, but of what will happen to his wife, his daughter, when he is gone. They will be fine, they tell him, over and over until they almost, almost believe it.

A grasp at immortality, that is what Mina’s life is, an attempt at holding onto water, flowing through her mother’s fingers like a sieve, as if a piece of her father could ever contain the whole of him, would be anything more than an echo of what he once was. 

She resents her mother for it, when she is young, resents that her birth was expected to do the impossible, to keep alive a dying man.

(For a time, she _is_ able to help, because when she is thirteen her father’s cancer is found, again, this time in his blood. At her birth, her mother saved Mina’s stem cells, meant them for _Mina_ , should she need them, but instead they are used for a haploidentical transplant for her father. This, too, Mina resents, because although she likes that she is able to help, would do anything for her father, loves him more, of the two of her parents, her mother frames it as a choice, says _You can say no, Mina,_ to her, promises that, _You might need them someday. We understand._ She would not say no, had she a choice, but she hates that they must pretend she does, hates the charade. Never could she allow her father to die, never could she live with the way her mother would see her, had she said no, never will she be able to shake the feeling that this, really, is what she was born for.)

Her father dies. He withers and wastes away, and it is a terrible thing to watch, as a child, is terrible to watch, too, all the ways in which her mother dies with him. Mina did not buy them immortality, gave her father two years, at most, with her blood, and likely took more time than that. At the end of it all, she does not even remember her father as her mother does, never knew him when he was well, when he was young, and strong, and full of life, knew only the man who had long since resigned himself to dying, would have done so sooner if only his wife could have stood to let him go. 

When she talks about this, her childhood, people think that is why Mina turned to work in artificial intelligence, liken her to Martine Rothblatt, and other such pioneers, people who could not stand to let the people they loved go. They think she sees artificial intelligence as a kind of immortality, that she is building a future where people like her mother need never mourn alone again, and children like herself, meant to be an extension of a parent’s life, and little more, are never born. 

She is not.

Mina wants for the beings she creates to be their own people, to have their own thoughts, their own dreams, their own personalities. They are not meant to be imitations of others, or another grasp at immortality—for, in truth, Mina can imagine no greater curse than to watch all those whom one loves decay. Already, she has seen enough of that for a lifetime. 

So she tells herself, when she is young, and she has years and years left in her. Even as she grows older, even as she begins the work on her Echo Project, she tells herself that she is not afraid of dying, is not afraid of what will be left of her, is not worried about what it will mean to be forgotten. That she was someone, once, will be no less true when all the living have forgotten it. 

Now, however, in her early fifties, she sees time differently, thinks about her mother with more sympathy, and more empathy, too. Unlike her parents, Mina has made quite a name for herself, will be remembered, always, for her role in stopping the Omnic Crisis, and she need not worry, therefore, that her name will fade from memory, not in the foreseeable future. One day, perhaps, she will be forgotten, but that will be far, far after any child of hers would have died, and their children too, and their children’s children. Her legacy as a researcher, as a scientist, as a hero, is secure.

(So, too, is her legacy as one of the people whose work engineered the Crisis. Many forgive her that, but not everyone will, and that, too, she has made her peace with. Always, she will stand by her work, will say that what she did was just, and right, and that even after everything, Omnics have the potential to be greater than people, to transcend humanity, are the only hope for a future with no more suffering.)

Unlike her mother, she will not need a child to carry her memory on—long ago chose her career over children, over her marriage, and she stands by that decision. In a perfect world, she need not have chosen, could have had both, could have carried the child her wife so desperately wanted without her bosses penalizing her for it, or could have adopted, if same gender couples had been equal, then, in the eyes of the law, the way they are now. But she did choose, she chose, and she has never regretted that choice, not really, even as she has watched from afar as her ex-wife raises a son with another woman. 

Her career has brought her more happiness, more fulfillment, than a child might have.

A decade into here relationship with Ana, however, Mina thinks she understands, a little better, why her mother wanted her father to live forever, wanted Mina to exist as some reminder of their love, some living, breathing token of the fact that once, they were two. With her ex-wife, things were different, because Mina was younger, or because she was married, or because it was impossible to imagine, while she was in love, a life without Xin Yi, a life where she died.

With Ana, that has always been easy, given her line of work, and it grows easier by the day as Ana’s hair grows greyer, and her face wrinkled. What a difference it is, between 41 and 54, what a cruel reminder that time marches on, marches on, marches on, what a thing to know that although their minds have not changed, their feelings for one another the same as ever, even though they have not drifted apart, time still pulls at them both, will keep pulling until they are snatched from one another.

Yet how beautiful, too, Ana looks in this light, how wonderful, to have the privilege to be able to love her for this long, to have known her for twenty years now, and to have been able to love her for half that. This, Mina would not trade for anything, she knows as Ana steps out from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, patting dry her long, thick hair with one of Mina’s towels.

(It is Mina’s, because these quarters are Mina’s. The two of them have never lived together, and perhaps never will. In the beginning, they promised that this was not a relationship, and it is not still, because Mina love Ana, that much is true, but Ana does not want to be loved, cannot stand to be, thinks herself undeserving and incapable both. If Mina said _I love you,_ she knows that all of this would end, because Ana thinks that loving her brings only pain, thinks that what she and Mina have works because she knows that Mina chose work over love, once, and thinks that Mina is doing so even now, thinks her devotion nothing more than a passing fondness, and this, a convenience. It should hurt—does, sometimes—but Mina, too, does not want love, does not want to be loved, not with the strings that come attached to such, the expectation that she will give herself over to another person, set her ambitions aside. Like this, not in love, they are fine with only seeing each other once a fortnight, meeting in secret in the evenings before Mina gives her report to Morrison and Reyes about her progress on the Echo Project. If they were in love, it would be more complicated, would mean fighting over how often Mina is away, or how careless Ana has grown, in combat, about what that means, what it says about her mental state. If they were in love, they would have to face each other, and themselves. So Mina keeps her love to herself, thinks the passing pain of knowing that love remains unspoken, unacknowledged, is most often worth the joy of loving Ana, and the time they get to spend together, at the cost of her silence.)

Here, in this moment, Mina could not be more content with her decision, could not imagine a world where any other path was better than this. Time is slowly changing Ana’s body. Always strong, she is taking on a more wiry appearance, and the shape of her face shifting as the fat in her cheeks redistributes itself. For as long as Mina has known her, Ana has taken good care of her hair, but now that she has hit menopause, she pays it special attention, applying weekly, rather than monthly, the hair mask she has always made herself, and covering her nails in clear polish to protect them. In no way does she attempt to hide that she is aging, or try to reverse it, but she wants, too, to not accelerate it, does not mind if she _looks_ older, so long as her skin is still soft, her hair still thick and strong.

Mina can appreciate that, even if she herself has taken the opposite approach, decided at 45 to start taking supplemental estrogen, and has never looked back. She is not afraid of aging, but does not want to deal with the inconvenience of it, wants to put off for as long as possible any of the troubling side effects, the fatigue and the hot flashes and the changes in mood. At first, she knows, it bothered Ana, not the choice itself—for that was Mina’s to make—but looking older, for the first time, than Mina, aging faster. Insecurity is not something Mina ever expected from her lover, particularly when Ana has fewer wrinkles than many women their age, but then, despite her reputation as perhaps the deadliest person alive, the best sniper of their lifetime, Ana is still a woman, at the end of the day, and as such has heard, time and again, that her looks are an important part of her being, has had it drilled into her that despite all else, she must be beautiful, too.

That, Mina understands, knows what it is to accept an award for her work, and for the presenter to joke that she is, at the very least, the most beautiful nominee, knows what it is to be aware that her ideas will not be taken seriously if she does not look good as she presents them, knows what it is to become more and more invisible to the world around them as she grows older, to see fewer and fewer women her own age on the news, or in popular culture. Too often, beauty is equated with virtue, with value.

Still, when Ana raises an eyebrow, points out that, “You’re staring,” it is the first reason she thinks to name.

“You’re beautiful,” says she, “How could I not?”

(As much as Mina objects to the idea of beauty as value, this, too, is true: Ana is beautiful to her, immensely. She will not keep those words from her lover on principle, not when they are true.)

A considering thought from Ana, as she moves to hang the towel up on the hook of the door before moving, again, into the bedroom, still damp hair clinging to her back, “I certainly don’t feel it, at the moment.” 

A pity, Mina thinks, because when Ana comes to sit next to her on the bed, Mina cannot imagine trading her for anyone else, of any appearance. That seems too sentimental to say, too close to an _I love you_ , to a confession—of love, of guilt, of being guilty of loving—and so, instead, Mina asks, “Why not?” sympathetic, but not too much so. A friend might ask this, too, and that is what she and Ana have said that they are, even as this has stretched on from one night to a month, a year, a decade.

(And they _are_ friends, it is true, were before this began; that does not go away just because they are sleeping together. Yet, still, it feels untrue, to say it that way, feels a reduction, an oversimplification. Friends with benefits they are not, even if they claim so. Confidants, maybe, or lovers, without the admission of love—those words might fit, but _friends_ is lacking in some depth, cannot describe the way Mina’s heart tightens when Ana asks, some nights, to be held, or the way her hands tremble when she finally is alone with Ana after she hears about another close call in the field. If this is anything, it is an affair, with the way they carry on in secret, but that, too, does not quite fit, for there is no one else in their lives, is no one they are hiding this from, is no compelling reason to keep this a secret, or any of the feelings associated with such a thing, the thrill and the guilt both. If they were having an affair, this might make more sense, but they are not, are not, are only two people who say that this is nothing, means nothing, even as they sleep more soundly in one another’s arms. When they say that they are friends, they both know it to be a lie of omission.)

“A stupid comment,” Ana says, minimizing, as she so often does, her own feelings, even after she chose to bring this up, to be vulnerable. One hand is across her eyes as she says it, like she does not want to see what it is she is remembering. “Some of the newer recruits, especially the junior ones—they could be our children.”

And oh, if that does not make Mina breath catch in her lungs. _Our_ children, Ana says—and means, of course, that they are both old enough to be the mothers of these new soldiers. Mina knows that, she does, but still, it is a reminder of something that sometimes, she feels like she missed. Not a family, specifically, because she is happy enough without one, is content with her choice not to have children of her own, but some level of involvement in Ana’s life which she never was able to have.

When Ana got divorced, it was because she did not believe herself capable of love, anymore, or of being loved, did not think herself worthy of it, thought that her work, the ways in which it changed her, made it impossible for her to be in a relationship, and Mina knows this, knew it before they ever became a couple, but sometimes—sometimes, she has wondered what it would have been like, to have met Ana in another life, to have known her in a different way. The handful of times Mina has met Fareeha, it has been as her mother’s coworker, her friend, and Mina does not want to be a second mother to her, not really, but she does wonder what it would have been like, to have been honest with her, to have gotten to know her more, as she grew up. Even now that they are not speaking, Fareeha is central, in many ways, to Ana’s life, to her identity, to her being, and Mina feels that she missed something, by not getting to know the woman more closely, feels like there is some part of Ana she will never be able to access, absent knowledge about her daughter.

So it stings, the phrase _Our children_ , no matter how Ana meant it, because even if Ana does not owe Mina access to that part of herself, her life, even if they agreed, long ago, that their lives were to be lived mostly apart, it is something that Mina wants, when she wakes at 03:00 from the strangest of dreams, sees Ana asleep in her arms and realizes that she can never, ever know what goes on inside her head. It would be nice, to have something to share.

That is not, of course, what children ought to be. Mina knows well what it is to exist as some way of proving her parents’ love, as some trophy of it, a record of its existence; she did not like it one bit, did not like that she felt, always, that her mother wanted less a child, and more proof of their love. If she and Ana had ever—it would be the same, she knows, because she does not want children, not really.

Here, a form of understanding: she wants what her mother wanted, too, some proof to the rest of the world that once, this existed, once, she was here and felt love. Better than her mother, however, she knows that a child is not that, is not some symbol of love, is not some living memory. What she wants is not that, is only recognition that this existed, once, exists now, some proof for the people who will come after her that once, Mina Liao existed, and once, she felt this love.

No such proof will exist. This—what she and Ana have—it is something that they do not speak of, not even to each other, is something formless, nameless, is something that does not belong even to them, not really, because they have not the words to harness it. When Ana says _Our children_ , she does it without even thinking that they could have ever had a child, could have ever been enough of something to have made anything permanent. All she means is this: the two of them are of an age. Were Mina the sort, like so many others, to have babies to save relationships, she could have had a child with Xin Yi who would be roughly the same age as Fareeha, and as the recruit who said something, today, which made Ana feel old, made her feel less than beautiful.

(If _Our children_ meant children they both had, it would always be Ana’s child with Sam, and Mina’s with Xin Yi, never theirs together. In no possible universe does a shared child exist—and, truthfully, Mina does not want it to, wants only what it might have represented, and nothing else.)

“They are terribly young,” Mina agrees, and she means that—the terribly. Always, she has thought war a terrible thing, but the older she grows, the worse it seems. So many are cut down so young, and Mina thinks—she knows—that it is a waste, to die in war, a waste of a life. No one’s life should end when they are less than half their present age, for it is only just beginning. In her early 20s, Mina was only settling on a specialty, had not yet truly come to understand her life’s goal, her passions.

(In her 20s, Mina had not met Ana.)

“Are they?” Ana asks her, voice dry, head tilted, the way it always does when she asks a question, “Or are we just old?”

A pause, and Mina shifts closer to Ana on the bed, “I don’t think,” says she, one hand moving to push a stray hair out from in front of Ana’s eyes, “That I want to be old just yet.” Not when she has only been with Ana for ten years, and she wants twenty, thirty, forty more. “And we’re only fifty. We could have half our lives ahead of us.”

Statistically, it is not likely—Mina’s own parents did not live beyond their 70s, and Ana is an occasional smoker, has been for decades—but so much of their lives have thus far been unlikely that Mina is willing to ignore that, just for now. 

“I’d rather not live to 100,” Ana scoffs, “Can you imagine me helpless?”

There is no direct line between age and infirmity, and Mina could argue that, could say, too, that she could build an intelligence capable of caring for them, in their old age, one which would render them not dependent on other people for their care, but she does neither of those things; the former sounds too much like denial, and the latter a confession. Instead, she says, “I can’t.”

Ana is stubbornly independent, has always been so, is the sort of person who cannot stand to rely on other people, who does her best to build up walls around herself so that it will only be others relying on her, a sort of imbalance that does not invite anyone to see her vulnerable. As much as Mina would like to grow old beside Ana, she knows that Ana will never allow it, knows that her pride and her fear and her pain all will prevent her from enjoying such a thing.

Still, knowing that does not make it easier to hear, or any less worrying. Ana takes more risks in the field, these days, and Mina worries, wonders—

“Maybe eighty,” Ana says, interrupting her train of thought. “That’s a decent age.”

And just like that, Mina forgets what she was thinking, is back here, close enough to Ana to touch her, if she wants to, and not hundreds of kilometers away, while Ana is on another dangerous mission, powerless to do anything to help. “Eighty-two,” Mina counters, for then she would have had this—what ever it is—for half of Ana’s life. It is a silly, selfish desire, but she thinks there is something solid about it, about _half_ , being able to say that. Then, no one could argue that this was nothing, was a dalliance, an affair. “I’ve always liked the number,” and that is not untrue, even if it is not her primary reason for suggesting it.

“Eighty-two, then,” Ana agrees. “And not a minute older.”

Something about that statement makes Mina’s heart swell. They are just joking, of course, are not seriously suggesting that they have any control over the age at which either of them will die, but there is something about Ana agreeing to eighty-two, something about her giving Mina that extra time, because Mina asked for it—there is something there that feels less like a joke, feels more like an admission, no matter how tacit, that Ana wants this, whatever it is, to continue on, too, that she also sees the two of them together, all those years in the future, or thinks, at least, that it is not so terrible an idea.

“I had better make the most of the next 28 years, then,” Mina says, lowering her tone, and moving in as if to kiss Ana. She does not finish the movement, not yet, enjoys just hovering here, where she can really see Ana’s face, all the little lines that are appearing on it, the age spot near her hairline, the way her lips part in response, and her eyes move down towards Mina’s lips.

“You should,” Ana agrees, and something about that—about the fact that she does not dispute that the next twenty-eight years of her life will be spent with Mina, in some capacity—is overwhelming in the most pleasant of ways. “We aren’t getting any younger.”

“I don’t want you to,” the words escape Mina’s mouth as a whisper, before she does finally kiss Ana, moves so that she is leaning over her, just slightly, much of her weight on one arm as the other comes up to thread in Ana’s hair, end of her palm on Ana’s cheek. It is true; a part of Mina wishes that they had met when they were younger, or had come together sooner, a part of her will always wish that they had more time than they do at present, but time has changed Ana, is changing her still, and at the moment, Mina cannot imagine wanting any prior version of Ana any more than she wants the woman before her today, cannot imagine trading her for a younger Ana, who might not have agreed to twenty-eight days, let alone twenty-eight years, and cannot imagine, either, an Ana who does not have all the scars Mina has come to recognize, and love, from childbirth and warfare and a life well lived, an Ana who does not have laugh lines and frown lines both, an Ana who does not have any of the marks of the time they have spent with one another.

( _With_ is maybe a strong word, but they have not been apart, either, these last thirteen years, have been not quite separate entities, and have been confidants for even longer, spent a decade before their affair began coming ever closer and closer together, the gravity of what exists between them growing stronger and stronger until, finally, they stopped orbiting it and were pulled together. If they have not been with one another, what have they been? Not alone, surely, unless they have been alone together.)

Up close like this, the smell of the mask Ana applied to her hair lingers, sharp cinnamon scent cutting through the haze of Mina’s other senses. When she goes out, and in the day to day, Ana prefers a floral smell, likes to smell of jasmine, something soft, something sweet, but this is the smell Mina will forever associate her with, instead, something stronger, sharper, more assertive. No one else on base knows this Ana, is there with her, in the evenings, after she has taken care of her hair. No one else knows all the little routines Ana follows, the little rituals, all the ways she works to preserve some image she has in her head of what it means to be a woman, and the ways in which she wants to be seen. No one else is privy to the Ana who is so very concerned with her image, who wants her womanhood to not be erased, by virtue of her work, or the color of her skin, but fears, too, that if she is seen somehow as too feminine, as too much of a woman, that no one will take her seriously, in an environment like this, and so she takes great pains to hide all the things she does for her appearance, lest she be seen as vain.

No one knows Ana like Mina does—not anymore. Once, someone else might have, but he is not here, has not watched Ana change over these past two decades, has not watched all the ways in which Ana has reshaped herself, following all that transpired in the Crises, all the ways she has chosen to change herself, and the ways in which she has been forced to change, by time, by circumstance, by pressure. Other people people have loved Ana, it is true, but it is Mina who has changed alongside her, all these years, Mina whom the world has warped and woven into someone who fits alongside Ana just right, Mina who has been by Ana’s side all these years, and found ways of touching, of loving, which Ana is willing to grant herself, circumstances under which she is willing to accept vulnerability, or on the worse nights, to at least feel in control enough to exist in the same space as another person.

It has been hard-won, Ana’s ability to be comfortable, again, with being known by another person, comfortable being held, comfortable with nakedness, in the original meaning of the word. For a long time, Mina could not do this, could not gently lower Ana onto her back as they kissed, could not gently, gently exert pressure in order to change their position, could not lean over her lover as she kissed her, because Ana felt trapped, like that. In the first few years, they never even addressed that discomfort, worked around it, because Ana was not even ready to discuss it enough to try to work through it, to overcome it.

Now, however, things are different. Now, Ana trusts Mina enough to do this, and more importantly, trusts _herself_ enough for it, knows that if things get to be too much for her, if now is not the time, she can put an end to things, can say what it is she needs without either of them feeling hurt by it. Now, Ana is completely relaxed as Mina moves down to kiss her neck, lets out a soft sigh and arches her neck into it. There is a physical vulnerability there that Mina doubts Ana will ever be able to forget again, is a danger inherent to the position, a surrender, which once terrified her, and now must live in the back of her head, a reminder that she is exposed—but remembering it is not a terrible thing, not anymore, because she has chosen this, chosen to accept that it is okay to be in this position with Mina.

(A few years earlier, Mina had remarked, pleasantly surprised, that Ana did not seem to even think about it, anymore, how thin the skin is above the veins in her neck. _I do,_ Ana told her, voice serious, but not grave, made so not by fear but by some other emotion, always unspoken between the two of them, _I_ _’ve just chosen to trust you._ That, Mina had no good response for, because Ana trusts so very few people, needs so often to be the one in control, the one who is determining others’ safety, and cannot bear to hand that over to someone else—to be told this, then, is something precious, far more than words can say, particularly given the words that they allow themselves, so she settles for thanking Ana, for kissing her, for hoping that the tone of her voice and the way she shakes a little, into the kiss, says what it is she really means. _It feels good,_ Ana tells her, after they are done, _Trusting you. Knowing that I_ _’m still able to. After all this time—I feel right, again._ )

Never does Mina take it for granted, the way Ana melts into her touch, never could she. This is something they have worked for, this trust, is something Mina has enjoyed building between them for all these years—is something she has learned to cultivate in herself, the kind of gentleness Ana needs but does not ask for, and the faith that she can be the one to provide that. Once, Mina fled from things like this, once she thought herself unable to be this soft, unsuited to it, once, she thought herself a harder person, and did not know that he could be all the things she wanted to be, in turns.

If Mina had known, when this started, just how gentle a lover Ana is, how much she wants for things to be soft, and sweet, and slow, Mina would never have pursued this, would have thought herself incapable of holding Ana the way she does now, one hand still against Ana’s face, thumb rubbing soft circles on her cheek as the rest of Mina moves lower, lower, tongue tracing over the places where the moisture from the shower still stubbornly clings to Ana’s skin, hiding in the underside of her breasts, her belly button, the little creases of her skin where her thighs meet her hips. Always, before Ana, Mina sought out lovers who preferred things to be more direct, or not so gentle as this, without so much attention paid to all the little sighs and gasps she can draw from Ana as she teases her, draws this out—not for the sake of teasing, but just because she likes to take her time, with Ana, likes to make her pleasure last for as long as possible.

Every so often, she breathes a compliment against Ana’s skin, just loud enough for the two of them to hear, and no louder, as if she were whispering a secret to the skin, soft and dark and no longer smooth, marked by all the ways in which Ana has lived. If she does not say it to _Ana_ , then Ana cannot refute it, cannot argue that the nipples Mina calls _Perfect_ are too large, cannot say that the stretch marks at the edges of her stomach Mina calls _Lovely_ are just an ordinary relic of pregnancy, cannot insist that the little trail of hair from her belly button down to her crotch is not, in fact, _Wonderful,_ but is something that she wishes she had the time, still, to get waxed regularly. Because Mina’s words are so quiet, and interspersed between kisses, between nips and licks and teasing touches, Ana lets them be, and Mina hopes that maybe, if she can just accept them, like this, if she can just not argue, then she will learn, in time, to accept not just the compliments but the words themselves, the beliefs behind them.

Until that day, Mina will keep doing this, will keep saying these things, because she needs Ana to know, needs Ana to see the version of herself that Mina sees—where all of those things are a part of a woman she has so much love for, a woman who does so much good, and cannot, therefore, be dismissed, discounted. If Mina ties this to pleasure, ties self-acceptance to the pleasant shiver Ana makes when Mina’s teeth graze over her nipple lightly, to the way her chest rises and falls quicker and quicker as Mina’s mouth travels down it, to the way she squirms, just a little, at teasing touches to the sensitive points on her stomach, then maybe, _maybe_ this will be easier for Ana to accept, easier for her to learn, and to learn well, that she does not have to be what the world says she ought in order to feel beautiful, that her body is no less worthy of love than it used to be because it has served her now for over fifty years.

Every kiss, Mina imbues with as much love as she can as she moves lower, and lower still, and when she has to remove her hand from Ana’s cheek, the reach becoming no longer comfortable, she is happy that Ana’s hand catches it, just for a moment, so she can press a kiss to the back of it—her way of saying _thank you,_ without so many words, and also, Mina hopes, an _I love you too,_ in response to the words Mina did not say. Even when this is meant to be about her, she always does things like this, makes little gestures to remind Mina that she, too, is worthy of the same attention, as if Mina could ever doubt it.

For someone whose job demands so much of her, so often, Ana can be so tender, when the situation allows it, can be so gentle with everyone but herself. It has been a strange thing, for Mina, learning to accept that tenderness, finding that, after so long thinking she could only enjoy things that were rough, were impersonal, that she quite likes people to be sweet with her, after all, might have always liked it, if only she had allowed herself to be held gently, if only she could have imagined that she deserved as much.

(Ana taught her that, taught her kindness, taught her that it is okay to want more, to ask for it, even. No matter what the world says about women like them, they are still deserving of just as much as anyone else, are still capable of it, and Mina knows that now, knows that she can be treated gently even if everyone knows already that she will not break, knows that sometimes, the way her heart aches, when she is touched, is something good, is something worth enduring, because not everything which overwhelms her is bad.)

Ana’s body, too, is soft, in unexpected ways. She is strong, yes, it is true, and Mina can feel her muscles jump underneath her skin when she touches her just right, but that does not change the fact that Ana’s stomach is not as firm as it was a decade ago, when this first began, her body fat having gradually redistributed itself over time, and does not change, either, that she moisturizes carefully, does her best to minimize the damage that her time in the field does to her skin. Even her scars are well taken care of, oil massaged into them regularly so that they mature quickly and become as smooth as possible, as painless.

There is a still healing scar that Mina passes over, as she moves between Ana’s legs, and she is careful to give it a wide enough berth. Officially, Ana is fully healed, but still, Mina worries about her. She knows, now, that Ana will speak up if something is hurting, knows that Ana is not the type to let her pride silence her, but even after all these years, Mina has never quite adjusted to it, the violence of the world. In her lab, it is different, is abstracted, even as she teaches the Echo Project everything she needs to know to fight, to heal, to kill—on her lover, evidence of war is something else, is something she cannot quite wrap her head around. If she could protect Ana from all of it, if that were something Ana permitted, rather than something stifling, something disempowering, then Mina would do it.

But she cannot. She cannot stop Ana from wanting to go into the field, cannot change that Ana is the very best at what she does, and cannot change, either, that Ana feels that she needs that, has built her identity around being able to protect all those whom she loves, and cannot bear to leave active duty, even when she has nearly died time and again, because if she retires, and someone she care about dies, she will feel that it is on her. Being a soldier, a protector, is central to the woman whom Ana has become, and Mina would not want to take that from her.

Instead, she does her best to be what Ana needs from her when she is here, on base, does her best to remind her that there are other things about herself which are good, are worthy of love, that she is not only a soldier, not only a mother, but can be herself, too, a woman, sometimes hurting, sometimes scared, and always worthy of love.

It is not ugly, the ways in which war has changed Ana. Mina did not know her _before_ the Crisis, cannot compare her to the woman she was before, but when she looks at Ana beneath her, damp hair clinging to her body, Mina does not think it makes her any lesser, that she has scars which catch in the light, and that she has not the time, in the field, to keep up the routine of removing her body hair. There are parts of the experience Mina wishes she could take away, the pain and the guilt and the doubt, but when she looks at Ana like this, what she sees is just _Ana_ , the woman she loves, Ana, who does not always feel beautiful at the end of a long day, Ana, who just wants for people to see her as she is, and treat her gently, sometimes, even as she is afraid of what it would mean to ask for that, afraid to admit that she wants that softness.

Mina, she does not need to ask, not anymore.

Gently, Mina trails kisses up the inside of Ana’s thigh, aware all the while of the way Ana moves into the touch, and the hand that comes down to thread in her hair. In the past, Mina teased Ana every time, made her ask for this, or better, order it, but now Mina knows that Ana likes, sometimes, to not have to ask, or tell, likes for things to be given to her easily, just because. Tonight seems like one of those nights, given what she said about herself, and so Mina makes no secret of how much she wants to be doing this to Ana, does not hide her enthusiasm as she moves to run the flat of her tongue across Ana’s center, tells her, in so many words, that she likes the look of her, legs spread open like this, obviously wet already, mentions too how much she enjoys the taste of her arousal.

(It makes Ana blush, she knows, when she says such things, and so she does not comment on it every time. For someone who is so direct in other areas of her life, Ana can be so _bashful_ about her own body parts—and it took some time for Mina to determine whether or not this was the welcome sort of embarrassment, or not. Now that she knows it is, now that Ana has admitted to her, uncharacteristically shyly, that she thinks it is sexy, how openly attracted to her Mina is, how unashamed of her own desires she has always been, now that she knows that—she likes making Ana blush, even when she cannot see it, likes just knowing that she has that effect on her.)

In response, Ana says nothing, but she squirms closer to her, and uses the hand in Mina’s hair to gently—always gently—encourage her closer. 

Mina does not need the encouraging, brings her mouth back to Ana eagerly, sucks the flesh of her labia into her mouth, enjoys the response she gets, as she does so, the sounds Ana allows to escape. She is not a loud lover, particularly, but she does not silence herself, either, makes no effort to hide the little _Ah_ sound she makes when Mina’s pressure is just right. She is louder, still, when Mina is at her clit, but Mina does not want to jump straight to that, wants to enjoy the taste of Ana a little longer, would stay like this forever, if only it were possible, would sustain herself on this alone.

But, of course, things must end eventually. Not yet, not yet—but always, and they are ever moving closer to one.

So she changes her rhythm, moves her mouth to focus nearer Ana’s clit, and brings one of her hands, previously tracing idle patterns on Ana’s hip, to finger her. She is gentle about it, always is, starts with just the one, moving in conjunction with her tongue, until Ana makes the little whine that she always does when she wants more.

(Going slowly, with this, is more for Mina’s sake than Ana’s. Most of Ana’s partners before Mina were cis men, and so she has never been bothered by the fact that sometimes, there is an initial moment of discomfort to adjust to—but Mina, who does not like to be penetrated at all, not by anything, is more comfortable with going very slowly, avoiding even momentary unpleasantness, when she can. Once, Ana thought it was a little silly, but she has long since stopped arguing that it is fine, really, has accepted that this is less about her, in this instance, and more about Mina’s imagining of what it is to be a good lover, a tender one.)

It takes a few moments to get the rhythm right, once both her fingers are inside of Ana, because she has learned, over the years, that Ana does not quite like things to match up, that the intensity of Mina’s mouth and her hand should not be the same. What that right intensity is differs, depending on Ana’s mood, and what else they have already done, on any given night, but by now, Mina is quite used to figuring it out, to figuring _Ana_ out, and it is not long before she gets it right, before she hears Ana’s voice above her telling her “ _Perfect,_ ” and “ _Mina,_ ” and other little praises.

Most of Mina’s focus is still on her mouth, is on drawing the perfect little circles around Ana’s clit, the way she likes, but she finds it hard not to to be too distracted by the way Ana has started to tremble beneath her, by the way she can feel Ana’s pulse beneath her, and the heat radiating from her. She is getting close, Mina knows, and although she wants to draw this out longer, always wants to extend the moments like this, where they are undeniably connected, and some sentiment, unspoken, hangs between them in the air, she knows that she cannot do so, knows that eventually, this is going to have to end. This is about Ana’s pleasure, anyway, about _Ana_ feeling beautiful, wanted, loved, and part of that is not making her ask for anything, showing her that she is deserving of kindness that she has not had to request.

So Mina increases her efforts, does not slow when Ana’s thighs start to tighten around her head, and her grip on Mina’s fingers grows stronger, stops only when Ana says, “I’m going to—” pulls her face away from Ana just long enough to say that it is okay to come, before returning her attention to Ana’s clit, rubs Ana’s hip with her free hand reassuringly, as if to say _I_ _’m here,_ and _I won_ _’t stop_ and _I_ _’ve got you,_ all in one. From there, it is not long before Ana comes, two little bucks of her hips the remainder of the warning Mina gets before Ana is pulsing around her, against her, her hand and her thighs holding Mina in place throughout it all—as if Mina would pull away, as if she would want to. She wants to experience this, all of it, the taste of Ana, the smell, the warmth of her.

For as long as Ana can tolerate, Mina keeps her hands where they are, and keeps up the motion of her tongue through all the little aftershocks that follow the orgasm, letting Ana chase after them as much as she feels inclined to, until petting at her hair makes it clear to Mina that Ana is done.

Mina sits up, for a moment, sits back on her feet long enough to stretch her jaw, and wipe off her face with the back of her hand—Ana does not like to taste herself, afterwards—and enjoys just looking down at Ana, now half propped up on an elbow, a satisfied smile on her face and fond look in her eyes.

“Come here,” says she, and Mina does, eagerly, because just looking at Ana will never be any match for experiencing her, for being able to touch her, to be held by her, will never hold a candle to the way Ana is kissing her right now, with tenderness and love.

_Love._

They will not say it, will not speak of it to one another, but that does not mean that it is not there, does not mean that it is any less strong, for not having been given voice to—does not mean that they do not know it, that they do not acknowledge it, in their own way. 

These days, Mina understands what it was her mother wanted, in having her, understands the impulse to share your love with the world, to want other people to know, to see, just how much it means to have someone who understands you as Ana understands her, whom you have grown alongside and along with. She understands that longing, has empathy for it—but she knows, too, that her own love is no lesser for the fact that she has not done anything to try and memorialize it, knows that it is no less true, for the fact that she has not told the world of it, knows that is no less real, if it is only ever expressed between these four walls. Mina has no child as testament of her love for Ana, and no desire for one, but sometimes, on the longest of nights, when she is alone in her lab, she whispers to the Echo Project all the words she and Ana will never say.

**Author's Note:**

> sneeze emoji, etc. as i was saying on twitter earlier: "must romances have happy endings? is it not enough that two people loved each other once but were too scared to admit it even to themselves?"
> 
> \- minas dad believing hes gonna be reborn is bc hes buddhist. abt 1/3 of singaporeans are, plus i really think it makes the themes of echos existence more interesting if mina comes from a buddhist background. i think its a good headcanon, thats all ill say  
> \- ditto i like the parallels of mina being an ART baby and echo existing. no canon basis for it  
> \- eating pussy is FUN and mina is valid as hell for just flat out saying that
> 
> not pictured: echo meeting ana post recall and being like. "u know, doctor liao was in love with u" and ana being like. whadda hell!
> 
> anyway. in conclusion. i hope u all enjoyed (?) this. if enjoyment was ur intended emotion??? please let me know ur thoughts! i greatly appreciate it
> 
> [also if u want to leave a request for femslash february, this is the link to the form i made](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdCKkFmC7a1YM4H127U7qIPZMHEXEUcNI3qFAXwYIBtDRQOMA/viewform?usp=sf_link)


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